60 ideas
| 20388 | 'Necessary' conditions are requirements, and 'sufficient' conditions are guarantees [Davies,S] |
| 4465 | Note that "is" can assert existence, or predication, or identity, or classification [PG] |
| 20389 | A definition of a thing gives all the requirements which add up to a guarantee of it [Davies,S] |
| 20391 | Feminists warn that ideologies use timeless objective definitions as a tool of repression [Davies,S] |
| 4686 | Fallacies are errors in reasoning, 'formal' if a clear rule is breached, and 'informal' if more general [PG] |
| 7415 | Question-begging assumes the proposition which is being challenged [PG] |
| 2653 | If the parts of the universe are subject to the law of nature, the whole universe must also be subject to it [Cicero] |
| 7414 | What is true of a set is also true of its members [PG] |
| 6696 | The Ad Hominem Fallacy criticises the speaker rather than the argument [PG] |
| 4687 | Minimal theories of truth avoid ontological commitment to such things as 'facts' or 'reality' [PG] |
| 6516 | Monty Hall Dilemma: do you abandon your preference after Monty eliminates one of the rivals? [PG] |
| 24054 | Everything has a probability, something will happen, and probabilities add up [PG] |
| 3875 | If reality is just what we perceive, we would have no need for a sixth sense [PG] |
| 3876 | If my team is losing 3-1, I have synthetic a priori knowledge that they need two goals for a draw [PG] |
| 2628 | Why would mind mix with matter if it didn't need it? [Cicero] |
| 7734 | Maybe a mollusc's brain events for pain ARE of the same type (broadly) as a human's [PG] |
| 7735 | Maybe a frog's brain events for fear are functionally like ours, but not phenomenally [PG] |
| 20814 | Eloquence educates, exhorts, comforts, distracts and unites us, and raises us from savagery [Cicero] |
| 20387 | Aesthetic experience involves perception, but also imagination and understanding [Davies,S] |
| 20385 | The faculty of 'taste' was posited to explain why only some people had aesthetic appreciation [Davies,S] |
| 20386 | The sublime is negative in awareness of insignificance, and positive in showing understanding [Davies,S] |
| 20384 | The idea that art forms are linked into a single concept began in the 1740s [Davies,S] |
| 20390 | Defining art as representation or expression or form were all undermined by the avant-garde [Davies,S] |
| 20392 | 'Aesthetic functionalism' says art is what is intended to create aesthetic experiences [Davies,S] |
| 20405 | Music may be expressive by being 'associated' with other emotional words or events [Davies,S] |
| 20403 | It seems unlikely that sad music expresses a composer's sadness; it takes ages to write [Davies,S] |
| 20393 | The 'institutional' theory says art is just something appropriately placed in the 'artworld' [Davies,S] |
| 20402 | Music is too definite to be put into words (not too indefinite!) [Davies,S] |
| 20395 | The title of a painting can be vital, and the artist decrees who the portrait represents [Davies,S] |
| 20396 | We must know what the work is meant to be, to evaluate the artist's achievement [Davies,S] |
| 20399 | Intentionalism says either meaning just is intention, or ('moderate') meaning is successful intention [Davies,S] |
| 20401 | The meaning is given by the audience's best guess at the author's intentions [Davies,S] |
| 20397 | If we could perfectly clone the Mona Lisa, the original would still be special [Davies,S] |
| 20398 | Art that is multiply instanced may require at least one instance [Davies,S] |
| 20404 | Music isn't just sad because it makes the listener feel sad [Davies,S] |
| 22705 | If the depiction of evil is glorified, that is an artistic flaw [Davies,S] |
| 22707 | It is an artistic defect if excessive moral outrage distorts the story, and narrows our sympathies [Davies,S] |
| 22706 | A work which seeks approval for immorality, but alienates the audience, is a failure [Davies,S] |
| 22704 | Immorality may or may not be an artistic defect [Davies,S] |
| 3877 | Utilitarianism seems to justify the discreet murder of unhappy people [PG] |
| 2640 | We have the death penalty, but still have thousands of robbers [Cicero] |
| 2652 | Some regard nature simply as an irrational force that imparts movement [Cicero] |
| 6126 | Life is Movement, Respiration, Sensation, Nutrition, Excretion, Reproduction, Growth (MRS NERG) [PG] |
| 3873 | An omniscient being couldn't know it was omniscient, as that requires information from beyond its scope of knowledge [PG] |
| 2645 | Why shouldn't the gods fear their own destruction? [Cicero] |
| 3874 | How could God know there wasn't an unknown force controlling his 'free' will? [PG] |
| 2627 | I wonder whether loss of reverence for the gods would mean the end of all virtue [Cicero] |
| 2651 | God doesn't obey the laws of nature; they are subject to the law of God [Cicero] |
| 2634 | It seems clear to me that we have an innate idea of the divine [Cicero] |
| 2636 | Many primitive people know nothing of the gods [Cicero] |
| 2650 | If a person cannot feel the power of God when looking at the stars, they are probably incapable of feeling [Cicero] |
| 2647 | It is obvious from order that someone is in charge, as when we visit a gymnasium [Cicero] |
| 2655 | If the barbarians of Britain saw a complex machine, they would be baffled, but would know it was designed [Cicero] |
| 2656 | Chance is no more likely to create the world than spilling lots of letters is likely to create a famous poem [Cicero] |
| 2657 | If everything with regular movement and order is divine, then recurrent illnesses must be divine [Cicero] |
| 2638 | Either the gods are identical, or one is more beautiful than another [Cicero] |
| 2635 | The gods are happy, so virtuous, so rational, so must have human shape [Cicero] |
| 2641 | Why believe in gods if you have never seen them? [Cicero] |
| 2659 | The lists of good men who have suffered and bad men who have prospered are endless [Cicero] |
| 2658 | The gods blame men for having vices, but they could have given us enough reason to avoid them [Cicero] |